Main menu

Elouise Cobell poses, center, with her legal team in the law offices of Kilpatrick & Stockton in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009. Left to right are Bill Dorris, Cobell, Keith Harper, Dennis Gingold and Geoffrey Rempel.

Share this Story

Dennis Gingold Leaves Cobell Case

Rob Capriccioso

12/6/12

Dennis Gingold, the lead lawyer for the long-running Cobell Indian trust litigation against the U.S. Department of the Interior, has left the case, according to court documents.

In his years of representing the case, first filed in 1996, the private practitioner had been a vocal critic of the federal government for its failure to conduct an accounting of mismanaged Indian trust.

After a $3.4 billion settlement was announced in December 2009 between the Cobell team and President Barack Obama’s administration, Gingold became an equally vocal critic of anyone who questioned terms of the settlement, including four Indians who appealed it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying it was unjust based on class-action law, fees, and other issues.

Late last month, the Interior Department announced that the appeals had run their course, and that checks should soon be mailed to class members.

Some administrative details are left to be handled on the case, so Gingold’s exit before all class members received their payments from the settlement was surprising to some long-time case observers.

“He must have gotten his money,” reflected Kimberly Craven, one of the Native American appellants of the settlement. Lawyers in the case were due to receive up to $100 million, according to the settlement terms. Gingold had previously argued that the lawyers were due almost $225 million. Most class members are scheduled to receive less than $2,000, so the lawyers’ fees have remained controversial.

Gingold has not responded to multiple requests for comment on why he left now and how much he was paid in the end.

Documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on December 4 say that Gingold, along with lawyer Thaddeus Holt “hereby provide notice of their withdrawal as attorneys in this action in accordance with LCvR 83.6(b).”

The filing indicates that class representatives James Louis LaRose, Thomas Maulson and Penny Cleghorn have consented to the withdrawal.

“William E. Dorris, Keith Harper, David C. Smith and other attorneys from Kilpatrick Townsend and Stockton, LLP will continue as Class Counsel in this case,” according to the documents.

You need to be logged in in order to post commentsPlease use the log in option at the bottom of this page

Comment *

POST A COMMENT

Comments

For whatever reason Mr. Gingold left the case one must admit that this attorney stayed the course with a case that lasted 15 years!! I applaud his ability and thank him for his dedication to this case.

Really?
Approximately 15 attorneys and staff work 15 years and split $100 million? And they settled for only $3.5 million of what plaintiffs said they were originally owed $47 billion. Hmmmmmmm?
And 500,000 Natives will receive under $2000 for historical mismanagement of their money. WHERE IS THE JUSTICE IN AMERICA????

Once again, Indians being screwed over royally by white people. When will we ever learn? I don't think we'll ever learn. The stockholm syndrome is too entrenched in Indians peoples minds. In some ways I tend to think Indians get what we deserve for being so stupid. $ 2 000 dollars for how many decades? What a joke....until the next screw up.

i think the goverment has taken from the natives since way before my father ,grandparents and their grandparents,etc were born,and will continue to do so,so the natives should take whatever they are willing to give us.my father wrote president Ford about the goverment taking taking away from the natives and,giving us nothing,some of us are barely getting by so,i really hope they pay the natives before more elders pass .what they give us is better then nothing at all,as it is our tribe is one of the poorest ,i have never received hardly anything from our tribe and there is a few casinos there ,but no one receives any monies from them ,why,well i think the goverment is taking their share.people have a merry christmas and welcome whatever the goverment is willing to give us.god bless everyone!!!!!!!!!1

You lost souls do not realize we have been embraced by the white society for a long time. Yes it has been very hard. But we as a people must embrace this as a giant victory. This is a vindication that the American Indian is a United Nation who can lead this land again.

Yes, I'd like to Post a Comment and Give Thanks to Ms. Cobell and her, I believe there were four (4) others who Filed this Case against the BIA?
Thank each and everyone of your for bringing this Major Injustice against the Natives re: their Land and major Resources. Its actually an Honest Truth that Reveals a small amount of Major indiscretion of 100's of Years the Federal Government took advantage of Natives back in the 1800s who didn't speak, or understand English. In those days they were NAIs couldn't even Stand Up for themselves in the Courts? It was against their Laws! That is, to stand up against a White Man.
Yes, this is only the Tip of the Iceberg folks. We've yet to make Headway to make sure that all tribes are truly self-governing? Another major Federal Act passed in 1978 is the Indian Child Welfare Act. It needs to be
Abolished and Terminated and removed from the U.S. Code of Laws because it is way too intrusive in the personal lives of Indians across Indian Country. THIS REMOVALWould be A Start and would Give our People Justice. The Government needs to stay out of our business and let us live our own lives? QUIT and PUT AN END To the Paternalistic Control of our everyday lives and let us Raise our own Children. They need to do the Right Thing and President Obama needs to Remove this Code, once and for all!
YEEEEEAH MS. ELOISE COBELL! Once,Againl I take a bow to her and her Stand against repeated and ongoing injustices the Federal Government still incurs against Indians in Indian Country! Thank her Family for standingl behind her through the years! Be so Proud of her Accomplishment. If it takes a Woman? Yeeeah,so be it. We need to Stand together and Stand up against the Government to be Treated equally and if not? Take a Stand like Ms.Cobell and refuse to be violated and mistreated.

Yes, I'd like to Post a Comment and Give Thanks to Ms. Cobell and her, I believe there were four (4) others who Filed this Case against the BIA?
Thank each and everyone of your for bringing this Major Injustice against the Natives re: their Land and major Resources. Its actually an Honest Truth that Reveals a small amount of Major indiscretion of 100's of Years the Federal Government took advantage of Natives back in the 1800s who didn't speak, or understand English. In those days they were NAIs couldn't even Stand Up for themselves in the Courts? It was against their Laws! That is, to stand up against a White Man.
Yes, this is only the Tip of the Iceberg folks. We've yet to make Headway to make sure that all tribes are truly self-governing? Another major Federal Act passed in 1978 is the Indian Child Welfare Act. It needs to be
Abolished and Terminated and removed from the U.S. Code of Laws because it is way too intrusive in the personal lives of Indians across Indian Country. THIS REMOVALWould be A Start and would Give our People Justice. The Government needs to stay out of our business and let us live our own lives? QUIT and PUT AN END To the Paternalistic Control of our everyday lives and let us Raise our own Children. They need to do the Right Thing and President Obama needs to Remove this Code, once and for all!
YEEEEEAH MS. ELOISE COBELL! Once,Againl I take a bow to her and her Stand against repeated and ongoing injustices the Federal Government still incurs against Indians in Indian Country! Thank her Family for standingl behind her through the years! Be so Proud of her Accomplishment. If it takes a Woman? Yeeeah,so be it. We need to Stand together and Stand up against the Government to be Treated equally and if not? Take a Stand like Ms.Cobell and refuse to be violated and mistreated.

When does it end? When does the animosity between Caucasian Americans, Black Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, etc come to an end?
Not a single individual should have ever been forced to live on a reservation in this country at any point in time in history. Some may have thought that they were protecting the American Indian by giving them their own space and some sense of security while I am quite certain others in 1851 had other motives. But that was then and this is now yet it still continues. What most of us fail to see today is what some American Indians have done and continue to do to Caucasian Americans and get away with it because of their Sovereign status. Behind the scenes, they call it "retaliation", "due process of what was done to them", "if they can do it to us, we can do it to them", “you can’t touch me, I’m a Ward of the Government”, and so on. I am a victim of such retaliation. I am a CURRENT victim and NO ONE has stepped up to recognize this severe problem on AMERICAN SOIL. Senators, Attorneys, Judges, Legal Assistance, even the President of the United States all have sent me the message, "sorry, we can't help you. Well who can? Where are my rights? You fight for the American Indian rights yet you don’t fight for mine? If you think I am an isolated case, think again. Since I had all my property stolen by an American Indian who I rented from without due cause in November of 2012, the stories have poured in how some American Indians have treated Caucasian Americans and to be honest with you, the stories are devastating. In Tribal Court, their own laws state they have no jurisdiction over non-members of their Tribe yet the court system is allowing this theft to be upheld. The Tribal Judge ordered me to hire an attorney because it as in my best interest and that I was no longer allowed to represent myself. This is a violation of my Constitutional Rights and ALL citizens who live in the United States of America are bound by our Constitution regardless of race, creed, religion, etc. If this treaty was broken, by all means they should have prevailed and I’m glad they did. But what if the situation is reversed? There are laws in treaties between the United States Government and the Tribes of this country that protect non-members while on a reservation yet several have been broken against me. Who is going to step up and fight this? I have no intention of ever stopping this fight. I was wronged when I tried to do something good for others but was instead envied and jealousy took over and I was retaliated against. It’s a 2 way street and it’s time to do something about the cruelty against Caucasian Americans by American Indians on reservations. "I" didn't start this fire!!!!!!!!!!